ARTICLES

OIS videos are shared broadly across the internet and can fuel the negative anti-police perception, even if the data isn't there to back it up

By Eric TuckerAssociated Press

WASHINGTON — Dramatic videos of deadly law enforcement encounters and the absence of reliable data about how often police use force contribute to a regrettable narrative that "biased police are killing black men at epidemic rates," FBI Director James Comey said Sunday.

That story line has formed amid a lack of comprehensive, national data about how many citizens are killed or injured at the hands of police officers.

Videos of fatal police encounters that capture the public's attention and are shared broadly across the internet can fuel the perception that "something terrible is being done by the police," even if the data aren't there to back it up, Comey said, speaking in San Diego during a gathering of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.​

"It is a narrative driven by video images of real and gut-wrenching misconduct, by images of possible misconduct, by images of perceived misconduct," Comey said. "It's a narrative given force by the awesome power of human empathy."

Americans "actually have no idea if the number of black people or brown people or white people being shot by police is up, down or sideways over the last three years, five years, 10 years," or if black people are more likely than white people to be shot during police encounters, Comey said.

That narrative creates a wedge between law enforcement and the public, keeping "good officers in their car" and perhaps causing them to think twice before making a certain traffic stop at midnight, Comey said.

"Our officers see the videos. They desperately do not want to be in one. They think about that all the time," he added.On the other side of the divide are distrustful community members who stay quiet instead of sharing information with the police after a crime, he said.

"And so into the chasm, into that gap of distrust, fall more dead young black men. In places like Chicago, we know what the chasm looks like and how much pain it causes," the FBI director said.

The FBI is moving forward with plans for a national database to track information about police use of force, Justice Department officials announced last week.

"We need to collect actual, accurate and complete information about policing in this country so that we have informed debates about things that matter enormously," he said.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.Copyright Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Here’s a remarkable graph from the Council of Economic Advisers report on incarceration and the criminal justice system. The graph shows that the United States employs many more prison guards per-capita than does the rest of the world. Given our prison population that isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that on a per-capita basis we employ 35% fewer police than the world average.* That’s crazy.

Our focus on prisons over police may be crazy but it is consistent with what I called Gary Becker’s Greatest Mistake, the idea that an optimal punishment system combines a low probability of being punished with a harsh punishment if caught. That theory runs counter to what I have called the good parenting theory of punishment in which optimal punishments are quick, clear, and consistent and because of that, need not be harsh.

We need to change what it means to be “tough on crime.” Instead of longer sentences let’s make “tough on crime” mean increasing the probability of capture for those who commit crimes.

Increasing the number of police on the street, for example, would increase capture rates and deter crime and by doing so it would also reduce the prison population. Indeed, in a survey of crime and policing that Jon Klick and I wrote in 2010 we found that a cost-benefit analysis would justify doubling the number of police on the street. We based our calculation not only on our own research from Washington DC but also on the research of many other economists which together provide a remarkably consistent estimate that a 10% increase in policing would reduce crime by 3 to 5%. Using our estimates, as well as those of some more recent papers, the Council of Economic Advisers also estimates big benefits (somewhat larger than ours) from an increase in policing. Moreover, what the CEA makes clear is that a dollar spent on policing is more effective at reducing crime than a dollar spent on imprisoning.

Unfortunately, selling the public on more policing is likely to be difficult. Some of the communities most in need of more police are also communities with some of the worst policing problems. We aren’t likely to get more policing until people are convinced that we have better policing. Moreover, people are right to be skeptical because the type of policing that works is not simply boots on the ground. As the CEA report notes:

Model policing tactics are marked by trust, transparency, and collaborations between police and community stakeholders…Better policing and more policing complement one another. Greater trust can come with body cameras as well as community oversight and other efforts to bring transparency and accountability. Most importantly, the drug war has eroded trust between police and community and that has led to an endogenous equilibrium in which some communities are rife with both drugs and crime. Fortunately, marijuana decriminalization and legalization have begun to move resources away from the war on drugs. Legalization in states like Colorado does not appear to have increased crime and has likely contributed to a dramatic decline of violence in Mexico. As we move resources away from drug crime, police will have more resources to raise the punishment rate for those traditional crimes like murder, robbery and rape that communities everywhere do want punished.​Addendum: See also Peter Orszag’s column on this issue. * Corrected: Earlier I said spending rather than employment.

Detective Pearl serves with the Paterson, New Jersey, Police Department and is an instructor with the Bergen County Police Academy.

Law enforcement exists to reduce crime and maintain order. However, in addition to those sworn to protect the public, community members also have roles and responsibilities in achieving these goals. Over time these burdens have shifted to the few, instead of being shouldered by the many.The shared desire for crime reduction and order maintenance cannot be fully realized without the cooperation of everyone in the truest sense of community. To this end, new perspectives can be gained from ideas that have existed for over 100 years.

Historic FoundationIn 18th century London, England, unpaid members of society commonly referred to as “constables” would police the local parish. A constable or layperson who pursued a wrongdoer would holler a “hue and cry,” summoning any able-bodied member of the community to assist in the apprehension. Community members were duty bound to respond to any call for help.

This system remained in place until 1829 when Sir Robert Peel established the London Metropolitan Police, consisting of 1,000 officers known as “bobbies.” This became the foundation for today’s police agencies, earning Peel the title of “father of modern policing.” In addition to founding this new police force, he codified a set of nine principles that he wanted his bobbies to operate by.

These Peelian principles highlight the importance of the community-police relationship. However, the seventh holds particular interest.

Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.[1]

The latter half of this principle suggests that the people who live, work, play, or serve in a neighborhood have an obligation to contribute in a reasonable way to that community’s goals regarding crime and disorder. In other words, they must do their part. While not enforced by law, this obligation suggests that civilians should accept responsibility for the consequences of their inaction.

The shared desire for crime reduction and order maintenance cannot be fully realized without the cooperation of everyone in the truest sense of community.The first half of the principle indicates that for members of the community to stand up and do their part, law enforcement must make sure civilians do not feel alone in doing so. The police are public servants. Although citizens’ position as tax-paying members of society does not provide them a license to dictate the actions of the police, it does establish their right to expect a reasonable level of service.

Distinct RolesAccording to FBI data examining 9,894 cities, the 2013 national average ratio of full-time police officers to civilians was 2.2 per 1,000.[2] Accounting for officers with inside assignments and those off duty, the number of on-duty law enforcement personnel challenged with policing a community is far fewer than that already low figure, illustrating that police and civilians must work together.

Similar symbiotic relationships exist in other areas of life. For example, people can eat well, exercise daily, and get enough sleep. However, they could wake up one morning realizing that a lingering minor cold has worsened. At some point they likely will seek a doctor’s help.

Most people know that they are primarily responsible for their own health. They do the best they can, but understand that at times they will need the help of someone with special training and skills to handle issues they cannot. Of course, reasonable persons realize that their health would deteriorate if they relied solely on a doctor. Similarly a dentist is not responsible for the rotting teeth of a patient who does not brush, nor is a cardiologist to blame because a patient’s eating habits have resulted in clogged arteries.

But, what if people lost trust in their physicians? What if doctors were difficult to reach when needed? What if they dismissed many concerns as menial and simply tended to “more important” patients? Their actions may have merit. Perhaps, they did have more crucial matters to tend to. However, patients would not care why they were neglected, only that they were treated as unimportant. Over time, if persons did not have their expectations met, strained relationships and a lack of trust would result. Most people would change physicians. After all, health is important, and placing it in the hands of unreliable professionals would be frustrating and troubling.

As with their bodies, people must learn to take ownership over their environment and the things they tolerate therein. Likewise, police must recognize the damaging effects of their actions or inactions on the citizens from whom they seek cooperation. Everyone must conduct themselves as both protectors and members of the community in which they live, work, play, or serve.

Public PerceptionCriminal justice research has supported the positive correlation between public perception of law enforcement and order maintenance. “Procedural justice,” or the procedural fairness with which officers operate, is a key factor in citizens viewing the police as legitimate authority figures. This results in voluntary compliance with the law (even when no one is looking). Two of the key elements used by people to judge police legitimacy are neutrality and trustworthiness. Citizens who view their local police as unfair less likely will practice voluntary compliance.[3]

Criminal justice research has supported the positive correlation between public perception of law enforcement and order maintenance.Perhaps, people have a supervisor at work whom they view as unfair and unreasonable. Over time they will lose respect for that person as an authority figure and, perhaps, the regard they once had for the organization. They might remain compliant enough to keep their jobs; however, with the decline of their respect comes the loss of incentive for them to follow the rules when they think they will not be caught. Hence, voluntary compliance is lost.

In a wider perspective, given the nation’s low officer-to-civilian ratio, if criminals believe that only the police are watching, they will consider the chances they will be caught as unlikely. But, what if an entire town is watching?The police have important roles and responsibilities in achieving the cooperation of the public. However, the onus is not only on the police to buy into this concept of true cooperation. Members of the public also must remain fair and open in their willingness to accept officers as legitimate authority figures.​Community DynamicsOne nontraditional approach toward crime reduction indicates that the manipulation of social norms is important for the deterrence of crime. “Informal social control” (peer and community pressure) can have more influence than “formal social control” (laws) in shaping what offenders consider social norms (acceptable behaviors).[4]

Although members of high-crime communities actually may have a lower tolerance for deviant behavior, they also less likely may express their disapproval of offenders’ crimes because of a “lack of support for authorities and their actions.”[5] Citizens may not like kids shooting guns and dealing drugs on their block, but their lack of respect for law enforcement will make them reluctant to take any action that would align them with the police.

In turn, “[I]f the dislike of authorities and their actions prevents, as it often does, expressions of disapproval for offending, informal social control will not be exercised. Further, offenders may read that silence, or expressions of disapproval of authorities, as approval for them and their actions.”[6] Therefore, a lack of respect for the police likely will result in citizens’ silence, and, ultimately, offenders will see their own behavior as acceptable.

Certainly, everyone’s perception of the police plays a role in voluntary compliance and informal social control, leading to the deterrence of crime. These concepts should guide the allocation of community resources.

ConclusionWhile the work of individual community policing divisions around the country undoubtedly is valuable, the net needs to be widened. To that end, programs and training should be molded to appropriately address these matters and target diverse groups. Systematically targeting captive audiences, such as those in police academy and in-service training, schools, religious and community groups, correctional centers, and probation programs, can help promote understanding and tolerance among the law enforcement, civilian, and offender communities alike, thereby improving the police-community partnership.

Placing blame on any one person or group is pointless. Simply, these issues need fresh thought and discussion to lay groundwork for a new outlook toward the application of community policing. There needs to be a shift away from a time in which community policing officers, a trained minority, worked closely with specific members of the community. Rather, an era could begin in which everyone understands the importance of everyone working together. Officers and civilians alike should look through the eyes of the other to better understand their own roles and the obstacles facing the other group.Detective Pearl can be contacted at pearl.cj@gmail.com.

CBS News reported that after the fatal shooting of a man by a LAPD police officer, someone posted the officer’s private information online including his home address, phone number, and other personal details including his child’s school location.

This practice of researching and broadcasting personally identifiable information about an individual is referred to as doxing (or doxxing) and is typically done with malicious intent. The information published can be anything from home addresses to vehicle identification to social media accounts. Once an individual has been exposed through doxing, they may be targeted for online harassment. Doxing is becoming enough of a concern that the FBI and the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) have issued warnings to law enforcement and public officials.

Protecting Yourself and Your FamilyAmerican Military University (AMU) recently hosted a webinar on this topic as part of its Law Enforcement Webinar Series. Presenter James Deater, who spent more than 23-years as a Maryland State Trooper specializing in wiretaps and other forms of electronic investigation techniques, provided advice for how officers can protect themselves.

“Any officer could end up in a situation where you do everything right in accordance with agency policy, but the incident is captured on video and it looks wrong to the public. It happens all the time and as soon as your name is released to the public, you become a target,” said Deater. “You may not be able to stop it, but you can at least make it difficult for people to find your private information.”​Here are some recommendations Deater made about how to protect your personal information:

Be aware of security and privacy settings on your accounts. Be selective about who you share information with and limit how often you post about your location (especially if it’s your home).

Remember that anything you post on social media might be used against you. Once it’s online, you cannot take it back.

Request Information Be RemovedDuring the webinar, Deater discussed ways that officers can proactively remove personal information from the dozens of websites that sell this information. He included specific details about what forms to submit, what identification documents to send, and how long it will take for information to be removed. However, some of this information is law enforcement sensitive and cannot be included in this piece. If you are a police officer, you can request to view the recorded webinar by sending an email (using your agency email address) to James Deater (JDeater@apus.edu).

Due to the level of interest, AMU will soon be hosting additional webinars on doxing. To be notified when this and other new webinars are announced, please complete this form.

Here are a few sites to consider removing your information from:

Google Earth. This free software allows individuals to access street views of locations. Deater recommends that officers submit a request that Google blur out your home, house number, vehicle, and any other identifying details shown on Google Earth.

It can take a considerable amount of time and effort to properly submit the forms, especially if officers are also removing their spouses and children from such databases. However, the time it takes to remove this information is worth it to protect—or at least deter—a malicious attack on an officer and his or her family.​About the Author:Leischen Stelter is the editor of American Military University’s premier blog, In Public Safety. She writes about issues and trends relevant to professionals in law enforcement, corrections, fire services, emergency management, and national security. You can follow AMU on Twitter@AMUPoliceEd or Facebook.

2 Responses to When Officers Become the Target: How to Protect Yourself from DoxingKevin September 20, 2015 at 11:37 am #

To mask your information, you need to throw up smoke screens and obscure your information from being collected by data mining firms and deep web crawlers. They collect, compile, and synthesize your information from public information disclosures such as your DL/ID information, voter registration, property tax and appraisal records, vehicle registration records, birth records, marriage records, criminal and civil court records and combine it with data mining information compiled from third party disclosure agreements from credit reporting agencies, magazine subscriptions, warranty cards, surveys, spam lists, social networking sites, and web browser cookies, who then sell your information wholesale through information brokers. There are a few simple things a peace officer can do to confuse the collection and synthesis of their private information and thus make it harder to search, purchase, and “dox” their information on pastebin.

A Texas Peace Officers can use the county courthouse of their residing county as an alternate address on their DL and ID. You will need to show up to the DPS office in person, fill out a change of address form, show your peace officer license, agency ID, and pay the $11 fee. You can remove your voter registration from all public disclosure by filling out Texas Form BW9-3 Request for Peace Officer Confidentiality. You can also change the address on your vehicle registration to a PO Box or private mailbox service for your vehicle registration address. If you are purchasing a vehicle, you may be able to use your initials or combination of initials and last name as the owner instead of full name on the car title. If you own a car and have the car title in your possession, you may also request to reissue the title under your initials or combination. If not, you will need to ask your lien holder for permission to reissue the title for a name change.

If you do not already have a PO Box or private mailbox service -GET ONE- and -USE IT-. You should not have any mail going to your residential address. Do not give your residential address out to any company or billing agency or use your residential address for online shopping, catalogs, magazines, or shipping. Do not fill out any surveys and do not enter yourself into drawings, sweepstakes, or disclose any of your information for freebies. You need to be very paranoid about postcards, catalogs, and mail lists, or anyone asking about your mailing address, especially marketing companies asking to photo capture your DL/ID. It may seem harmless but it opens the door to public disclosure of your privacy.

The final task is to opt-out of data mining brokers. The most important is to opt out of credit reporting agencies from third party disclosure and telemarketing databases. This can be done online through optoutprescreen.com and donotcall.gov. These two will make it harder for data brokers to collect information on you. You will then have to go each and every data broker that offers opt out option. There are approximately 270+ data brokers. Some offer this option through an online form while most require you to send a letter requesting opt-out, and a copy of your DL/ID (black out the DL#, picture, and DOB), others offer partial opt-out, opt-out for law enforcement only, while some do not offer any opt-out. It is nearly impossible to remove your information entirely but you can definitely make it harder for someone to look you up and find correct information.

​BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO POLICE HARASSMENT

Vol.45, No.8 | NZPA | Sat September 1st, 2012A North Island police station received this question from a resident through the feedback section of a local Police website:

“I would like to know how it is possible for police officers to continually harass people and get away with it?”

In response, a sergeant posted this reply:

First of all, let me tell you this ... it’s not easy. In the Palmerston North and rural area we average one cop for every 505 people. Only about 60 per cent of those cops are on general duty (or what you might refer to as “general patrols”) where we do most of our harassing.

The rest are in non-harassing units that do not allow them contact with the day to day innocents. At any given moment, only one-fifth of the 60 per cent of general patrols are on duty and available for harassing people while the rest are off duty. So, roughly, one cop is responsible for harassing about 6000 residents.

When you toss in the commercial business and tourist locations that attract people from other areas, sometimes you have a situation where a single cop is responsible for harassing 15,000 or more people a day.

Now, your average eight-hour shift runs 28,800 seconds long. This gives a cop two-thirds of a second to harass a person, and then only another third of a second to drink a Massey iced coffee AND then find a new person to harass. This is not an easy task. To be honest, most cops are not up to the challenge day in and day out. It is just too tiring. What we do is utilise some tools to help us narrow down those people we can realistically harass.

PHONE: People will call us up and point out things that cause us to focus on a person for special harassment. “My neighbour is beating his wife” is a code phrase used often. This means we’ll come out and give somebody some special harassment. Another popular one is, “There’s a guy breaking into a house.” The harassment team is then put into action.

CARS: We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive. They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, cars with no insurance or drivers with no licences and the like. It’s lots of fun when you pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light. Sometimes you get to really heap the harassment on when you find they have drugs in the car, they are drunk, or have an outstanding warrant on file.

LAWS: When we don’t have phone or cars, and have nothing better to do, there are actually books that give us ideas for reasons to harass folks. They are called “statutes”. These include the Crimes Act, Summary Offences Act, Land Transport Act and a whole bunch of others... They spell out all sorts of things for which you can really mess with people. After you read the law, you can just drive around for a while until you find someone violating one of these listed offences and harass them. Just last week I saw a guy trying to steal a car. Well, the book says that’s not allowed. That meant I had permission to harass this guy.

It is a really cool system that we have set up, and it works pretty well. We seem to have a never-ending supply of folks to harass. And we get away with it. Why? Because, for the good citizens who pay the tab, we try to keep the streets safe for them, and they pay us to “harass” some people.

Next time you are in Palmerston North, give me the old “single finger wave”. That’s another one of those codes. It means, “You can harass me.” It’s one of our favourites.

War on Cops is Real

In a recent editorial in the Washington Post, Radley Balko claims that no War on Cops exist. He goes even farther to suggest that anyone referring to a War on Cops is “playing a dangerous game.”Mr. Balko throws out some statistics to back his claims. Gunfire deaths of law enforcement are near an all-time low. Sure, if January 1 is used as a marking point to determine the aggression against law enforcement. However, remove the situations where a criminal was trying to evade arrest. Look at the incidents where officers were targeted – where they were assassinated for wearing the badge.Then shift the date to August 9, 2014. Look at the attacks against law enforcement since the incident in Ferguson, Missouri. Since then, too many law enforcement officers have been murdered simply because they were law enforcement officers. No other reason.Locally, Berkeley County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Will Rogers was close to being another statistic.Riots and vile messages of hate became the norm for “activists.” It became ok to demand the deaths of people because of the profession they chose. The men and women who protect our communities unfairly became the villains.CNN reported in March of 2015, concerning these type of attacks on law enforcement. Even before the killings of Texas Deputy Goforth and New Orleans Patrolman James Bennett, this problem was on the forefront. National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund Chairman Craig Floyd was quoted in the article, “With the increasing number of ambush-style attacks against our officers, I am deeply concerned that a growing anti-government sentiment in America is influencing weak-minded individuals to launch violent assaults against the men and women working to enforce our laws and keep our nation safe.”The Wall Street Journal published an article recognizing this dilemma. The articles quotes a female sergeant in New York, “The perps feel more empowered to carry guns because they know that we are running scared.” This boldness is concretely resulting from the War on Cops that Mr. Balko wants to ignore.Mr. Balko is wrong. No matter how he intends to spin the numbers, there is a war on cops. The war is not just about numbers. It’s about numbers and sentiment. And the time has come for the American public to say enough is enough.Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker said it best, “In our society we need leaders, not just in elected office, we need clergy and business and other leaders in our community to say enough is enough.”He continued, “These are the men and women we need to stand up and protect us. We need to make sure they have the training and they follow through on that training. We need to increase and improve relations for sure, but we cannot have it any more this idea that it’s OK to go after law enforcement just because they wear the uniform and just because they have a badge.”I encourage all citizens to stand up and be heard. Whether physical or otherwise, the attacks on law enforcement must stop.ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund...

The research and analysis conducted by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund helps raise awareness of the dangers officers face each day and highlights areas where improvement in officer safety and wellness is needed.64 Law Enforcement Officer Fatalities Nationwide in First Half of 2015According to preliminary data compiled by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 64 law enforcement officers have been killed in the line of duty during the first half of 2015. This represents a three percent increase over the same period in 2014 in which 62 officers were killed.Total Fatalities: 1965-2015For the third year in a row, traffic-related incidents were the leading cause of officer fatalities in the first half of 2015. Thirty officers were killed as a result of traffic-related incidents, increasing 20 percent from the same period in 2014.Firearms-related fatalities were the second leading cause of death among our nation’s law enforcement officers in the first half of 2015, decreasing 25 percent with 18 fatalities compared to 24 in the same period last year. Officers feloniously killed during a traffic stop or pursuit was the leading circumstance of fatal shootings, with four fatalities.In the first half of 2015, 16 officers died as a result of other causes unrelated to firearms or traffic, increasing 23 percent during the same period in 2014.Job-related illnesses, such as heart attacks, increased in the first half of 2015, with 16 officer deaths compared to 13 officers during the same period in 2014.Sixty-two fallen officers were male and two were female. Their average age was 40 years, with 13 years of service. On average, each officer left behind two children.Read the full report at www.LawMemorial.org/ResearchBulletin.